Poverty in maize growing rural communities of Southern Africa

Abstract

This study provides a detailed analysis of the extent and determinants of poverty in the maize-based rural economies of selected districts in southern African countries of Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. Poverty profiles showed that households that were absolutely poor had significantly smaller family sizes, fewer livestock, smaller farm sizes, smaller number of illiterate household members, and less number of important assets such as phones and radios. The study also details the extent and determinants of poverty in the study countries using quantile regression. The importance of maize technology use and resource allocation to the crop in determining the magnitude of poverty is an important finding as the sampled households were essentially semi-subsistent with limited market orientation. This finding also justifies the effort being exerted on the development and deployment of maize and maize-related technologies in rural communities of southern Africa.